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HOLYOKE – Firefighters spent hours in 95-degree heat Tuesday battling a brush fire they believe was started by someone living in a tent in the woods between Community Field and Scott’s Tower, an official said.

“Chainsaws had to be used to cut through piles of brush. The heat-humidity did not make the job easy for firefighters,” Lt. Thomas G. Paquin said just before 9 p.m.

The fire at the park off Cherry Street burned 40,000 square feet of brush-covered area and was embedded in the woods, he said.

That required that firefighters drag 700 feet of hose into the woods to extinguish the flames, he said.

An unoccupied tent and a fire pit were found near the fire site, he said.

“We’re going to go up there in the daylight, see if we can find someone,” Paquin said.